Slashdot Mirror

An anonymous reader writes "The Bush administration is objecting to the creation of a .xxx domain, saying it has concerns about a virtual red-light district reserved exclusively for Internet pornography. This is despite the the .xxx domain being approved in June and New.net selling domain names using the .xxx suffix for many months before the approval." From the ZDNet article: " The sudden high-level interest in what has historically been an obscure process has placed the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) in an uncomfortable position. ICANN approved the concept of an .xxx domain in June and approval of ICM Registry's contract to run the suffix was expected this week Other governments also have been applying pressure to ICANN in a last-minute bid to head off .xxx. A letter from ICANN's government advisory group sent Friday asks for a halt to 'allow time for additional governmental and public policy concerns to be expressed before reaching a final decision.'"

pin_gween writes "According to an article on ZDNet, the FCC wants the ability to track Wi-fi accessible phones like the ZyXel phone. The FCC's June report talked about several ways of realizing a caller's location: 'creating an "inventory" of every Wi-Fi access point in the United States, engaging in "mapping and triangulation" of those access points, compiling an "access jack inventory" for wired VoIP users, or even mandating that Net phones include GPS.'"

prostoalex writes "Between June and July of this year, Firefox lost 0.64% of the users, while Microsoft IE gained the same amount, leaving other browsers at their usual zero point something share. Could recent security problems and lack of stability, reported by some users, lead to the decline of the browser that just passed 80 million downloads?" I think the other thing to remember is that while ~8% seems a lot, there's a still a huge amount of ground to cover -- and a number change like this is statistical noise. I should point out that my issue with noise isn't the absolute numbers; it's the somewhat inadequate measurements tools for this.

Slashback tonight with more on the Microsoft start page project vis-a-vis Google's similar one, a wee $40 million slap on the wrist for Amazon over shopping-cart patent infrigement, new animals for the CodeZoo, and a strong denial that WikiPedia has announced a more stringent editorial policy. Details on these stories and more, below.

What's done is done, and in a certain order. MSN.com general manager Hadi Partovi writes:

"A few days ago I read your Slashdot post about start.com.

Thank you for the promotion :-). Meanwhile, I wanted to make sure you know that the work we've been doing on the start.com project actually predates the Google personalized page. I manage a tiny incubation team that has been building start.com since November, and it was first live on the Web in February, 3 months before Google released their personalized page. Of course we are missing some capabilities that Google has, and vice versa. It's a tight competition. But I'm emailing you because our team takes a lot of pride in its innovation. You may point out at a lot of place where Microsoft is following competitors, but if you track the functionality and UI changes that the companies have made over the past 6 months, this has clearly been a place where Google has been following Microsoft's lead.

(Our main engineer on the project has written a bit more about this to respond to your post.)

Anyway, I'm not sending this to be defensive. Heck, I have a lot of work to do to bring an innovation culture to the MSN organization and in many areas we have our work cut out for us. But I guess I want my small incubation team to get credit for being the leading innovators on this one small product :-)"

Thanks for the note!

Always clean out the trashcan. dotpavan writes "The Register and Cnet have this report about Kai-Fu Lee not cleaning his recycle bin at his previous workplace and now MS has stumbled upon some interesting document, which shows that Google anticipated the MS move, and had planned top put him on a leave of absence or have him as a consultant to thwart any attempt of MS getting him back."

Amazon Settles Patent Suit For $40M theodp writes "In today's SEC filing, Amazon.com disclosed it will pay $40 million to settle an e-commerce patent infringement lawsuit that was reported earlier on Slashdot. The terms of the settlement also provide for dismissal of all claims and counterclaims and grant Amazon a nonexclusive license to Soverain's patent portfolio."

29+36 more = 65 vector drawing apps. Anonymous Coward writes "There were many useful comments made for 29 Vector Drawing Programs. After incorporating most of them, the revised column has 65 Vector Drawing Programs."

And each after its own kind. chromatic writes "As seen on the O'Reilly Radar and announced at OSCON 2005, CodeZoo now lists Python and Ruby components. CodeZoo is a human-edited directory of useful, well-maintained, and redistributable software components in various languages. (Slashdot previously covered CodeZoo's launch.)"

The chair recognizes Mr. Wales for a point of clarification. brajesh writes "There has been news on Slashdot and others about Wikipedia announcing tighter editorial control. It seems that everyone jumped the gun. Jimmy Wales, a founder of Wikipedia, has clarified his stance on the idea of freezing stable content on Wikipedia. Apparently, [Jimbo writes] 'I spoke in English, and this was translated to German. Then the German was translated back to English, and then translated again into the Slashdot story.' Also, 'There was no "announcement." We are constantly reviewing our policies and looking for ways to improve, but we have not "announced" anything. We don't even really work that way ... if you know how Wikipedia works, it's through a long process of community discussion and consensus building, not through a process of top-down announcements.' This has also been covered on Ars Technica."

Google Earth not a security risk after all. mister_tim writes "In a follow-up to yesterday's story about ANSTO's request that Google censor images of Australia's only nuclear reactor, the Australian government has now come out and said that Google Earth poses no security risk. Australia's Attorney General has come to the view, also noted by many /. readers, that the Google images have been available for several years from other sources and add nothing to the existing publicly available data. Chalk this one up as a victory for common sense."

prostoalex writes "According to CacheLogic survey, 61.44% of the peer-to-peer traffic nowadays is video, with audio taking distant second place, representing 11.34% of global traffic. Moreover, 12.3% of all the music files traded on P2P networks are in Ogg format. Almost all of the OGG files are traded via BitTorrent protocol with most of the growth coming from Asia, CacheLogic says."

gentoo1337 writes "Eben Moglen of the FSF speaks out in this ZDNet article, noting that GPL v3 may be publicly drafted in early 2006, and in force one year later. The process is very sensitive (noting concerns of forking in the Linux world), but Eben Moglen is optimistic: 'When it's all over, people are going to say, "All that talking for just that much change?" [...] We will do no harm. If we think (some change) may have any unintended consequences, we will not recommend making it.' Controversies aside, there is some good news -- Richard Stallman aims to 'lower barriers that today prevent the mixing of software covered by the GPL and other licenses.' The earlier Slashdot discussion contains complementary info about the intentions of FSF."

overshoot writes "We all knew it was coming, didn't we? Now Princeton University and nine others are introducing DRM'd textbooks. For a 33% discount, students get a 5-month node-locked e-book instead of all that glossy paper. Maybe Congress should just get it over with and change the law to allow EULAs on printed works?"

RFID tags seem to be the flavor of the month for law enforcement officials in the tracking of individuals both foreign and domestic. pin_gween writes "In an effort to speed up entry to the US, The Dept. of Homeland Security has begun a trial using RFID tags in certain visitors' papers. The tag is embedded in paperwork and "chip readers note the entry or exit of visitors who pass by and transmit that information to a government-maintained database." In addition, Saeed al-Sahaf writes "Security officials gathered Monday at a Canadian border crossing to mark the first test of this radio RFID system" Relatedly LexNaturalis writes "Wired News has an article about England testing RFID chips in license plates that can transmit VINs and other data to appropriate receivers. According to the article, the United States will be 'closely watching the British trial as they contemplate initiating their own tests of the plates, which incorporate radio frequency identification, or RFID, tags to make vehicles electronically trackable.' Naturally privacy advocates are decrying the move by stating that unlike electronic toll passes, these new plates will not be anonymous." We mentioned the concept of tracking visitors via RFID in July.

prostoalex writes "Get two research companies in the room, and you'll likely end up with three opinions. Bear Sterns quotes ComScore Networks data, which says that Google's share of searches is slipping, down to 36.9% in June 2005. WebSideStory, a Web research company, on the other hand, claims that in June 2005 Google hit a new record as far as share of searches, hitting 52%, and leaving rivals far behind."

prostoalex writes "Get two research companies in the room, and you'll likely end up with three opinions. Bear Sterns quotes ComScore Networks data, which says that Google's share of searches is slipping, down to 36.9% in June 2005. WebSideStory, a Web research company, on the other hand, claims that in June 2005 Google hit a new record as far as share of searches, hitting 52%, and leaving rivals far behind."

Greg Linden writes:"According to ZDNet, the investors behind Google are at it again. John Doerr and Ram Shriram are investing in Zazzle, a company targeting mass customization by allowing shoppers and store owners to create individually tailored clothes, prints, and other items. For example, customers can choose an image from a large image library, design a T-shirt using the image with online tools, and then have the T-shirt delivered to them. Lands' End, CafePress, and other online clothing stores offer similar mass customization services on a small scale, but Doerr clearly believes that there is a substantial opportunity 'for every individual who wants to create products that are as unique as they are.'"

William Robinson writes "ZDNet reports that HP is planning to layoff 15000 employees. IT, sales and services will be among the areas particularly hit, although the sweeping cuts will be felt throughout the company, according to a close source to the company." From the article: "HP is expected to announce the layoffs as early as Monday, but employees are not expected to be immediately notified of their status, the source said, noting such a practice is common in corporate America. More high-level discussions on the layoffs will occur late next week and employees may get a greater sense of their specific status sometime thereafter."

cfelde writes " 56.2% of software developers use open source components by ZDNet's ZDNet -- Evans Data has found a rising trend toward including open source modules in software development world. While 38.1% said they used OSS modules in their applications in Spring of 2001, in the most recent survey, 56.2% said they had."

cfelde writes " 56.2% of software developers use open source components by ZDNet's ZDNet -- Evans Data has found a rising trend toward including open source modules in software development world. While 38.1% said they used OSS modules in their applications in Spring of 2001, in the most recent survey, 56.2% said they had."

Some guy writes "Having acquired IBM's PC division, Lenovo will become the first major reseller of blade desktops. Blade desktops feature only input devices and a 'networking unit,' connecting to a blade server for computational power. Such thin client designs reduce support needs and cluttered desk space, but require complex deployments to work well."

Some guy writes "Having acquired IBM's PC division, Lenovo will become the first major reseller of blade desktops. Blade desktops feature only input devices and a 'networking unit,' connecting to a blade server for computational power. Such thin client designs reduce support needs and cluttered desk space, but require complex deployments to work well."

fsterman writes "ZDNet reports that Current Communications Group has received investment money from Google, Hearst, and Goldman Sachs for their internet over broadband ventures. The Wall Street Journal reports that the three companies invested roughly $100 million in the start-up. Current Communications and Cinergy Broadband said they will create one joint venture to bundle broadband and voice services for Cinergy's 1.5 million customers. Current also has plans to use the new investment money to expand its broadband over power line deployments in the U.S. and overseas."

prostoalex writes "It's been ten years since the official introduction of Java - a programming language combined with virtual machine and a class library. ZDNet published an interview with James Gosling, the creator of Java, who talks about the project's past, present and future."

prostoalex writes "164 million people on this planet have a broadband connection, ZDNet reports, with 52 million broadband lines sold between March 2004 and March 2005. USA, China, UK, Japan and France currently lead the world in number of broadband hookups available. Poland was the first Eastern European country to join the 'million broadband lines' club."

prostoalex writes "164 million people on this planet have a broadband connection, ZDNet reports, with 52 million broadband lines sold between March 2004 and March 2005. USA, China, UK, Japan and France currently lead the world in number of broadband hookups available. Poland was the first Eastern European country to join the 'million broadband lines' club."

The Good Reverend writes "MasterCard International announced today that a security breach at CardSystems Solutions, a third party processor of payment card data, potentially exposed more than 40 million cards. Mastercard is aware of the specific card numbers affected, and is giving its member financial institutions the numbers that may have been compromised. Unlike many of the past high profile cases this one involves a hacker rather than lost packages. CNN Money, the New York Times, Reuters, MSNBC, ZDNet, C|Net, and the Washington Post are also covering the story."

TPIRman writes "At Gartner's recent IT Security Summit, the research company's analysts identified five over-hyped security concerns. Among the supposed FUD are mobile malware, unsafe VoIP, and cracker-friendly wireless hotspots. Gartner, which has made a name for itself tracking hype, claims that irrational anxiety is holding back technologies that offer benefits greater than their security risks. A Techworld columnist argues, though, that Gartner is sending mixed messages."

kanad wrote to mention a ZDNet article covering the introduction of the Patent Reform Act of 2005 to the U.S. House of Representatives. From the article: "Probably the most sweeping change would be the creation of a process to challenge patents after they are granted by the Patent and Trademark Office. 'Opposition requests' can be filed up to nine months after a patent is awarded or six months after a legal notice alleging infringement is sent out. The bill is supported by the USPTO and Microsoft who have been recently asking for patent reforms ." More details of the bill are available at the Congressman's website."

kanad wrote to mention a ZDNet article covering the introduction of the Patent Reform Act of 2005 to the U.S. House of Representatives. From the article: "Probably the most sweeping change would be the creation of a process to challenge patents after they are granted by the Patent and Trademark Office. 'Opposition requests' can be filed up to nine months after a patent is awarded or six months after a legal notice alleging infringement is sent out. The bill is supported by the USPTO and Microsoft who have been recently asking for patent reforms ." More details of the bill are available at the Congressman's website."

manugarg writes "The Indian government is distributing free CDs of localized open sorce softwares like Firefox, OpenOffice.org etc. to encourage the use of computers across the country. ZDNet reports, 'The Indian government's decision to ship free software in this way likely will be a blow to Microsoft, which plans to release a low-cost version of Windows in India soon. Microsoft originally hoped to release its Windows XP Starter Edition--a low-cost, feature-restricted version of Windows XP--by the end of March, but it's now aiming for a June release.'"

An anonymous reader writes "Various news sources including ZDnet are today reporting that Microsoft is considering buying out Red Hat, speculating that 'Microsoft could see Red Hat's acquisition as a nice way to undermine IBM, but might not consider that a sufficient reason to do it,' adding that Red Hat is however '...a company that wants to be Microsoft and, like Microsoft, makes its living packaging and selling other people's ideas.'" That description seems to miss the key point that Red Hat releases the software they package and sell as Free software, and that both companies pay coders to create and improve software in the first place.

KenDaMan writes "ZDNet.com is reporting that the MPAA is targeting websites that serve as traffic directors for BitTorrent swaps. From the article: 'Continuing its war on Internet file-swapping sites, the Motion Picture Association of America said Thursday that it has filed lawsuits against a half-dozen hubs for TV show trading.' Apparently it is OK to record TV as long as your aren't sharing it."

rjelks writes "Microsoft's Bill Gates released details about the company's new mobile operating system, code-named Magneto, at the Mobile & Embedded Developers Conference in Las Vegas today. There has been a lot of recent speculation about the new OS. People have been describing it as a possible 'Blackberry killer.' Windows Mobile 2005 will be released to hardware manufacturers immediately. The OS will integrate Smartphone, Pocket PC, and Pocket PC Phone Edition operating systems into one platform. It will also include updates to the mobile versions of Word, Excel and PowerPoint." Relatedly, ZDNet has an interview with Gates about the initiative.

An anonymous reader writes "According to ZDNet, Microsoft plans to add the software equivalent of a 'black box' flight recorder to Windows. According to the article, 'The tool will build on the existing Watson error-reporting tool in Windows but will provide Microsoft with much deeper information, including what programs were running at the time of the error and even the contents of documents that were being created.'" Commentary available via C|Net as well.

An anonymous reader writes "According to ZDNet, Microsoft plans to add the software equivalent of a 'black box' flight recorder to Windows. According to the article, 'The tool will build on the existing Watson error-reporting tool in Windows but will provide Microsoft with much deeper information, including what programs were running at the time of the error and even the contents of documents that were being created.'" Commentary available via C|Net as well.

prostoalex writes "Can an open source project be acquired? ZDNet's Between The Lines says yes, one just did. Software startup JasperSoft acquired Sourceforge-based project JasperReports, which involved acquiring the copyrights and hiring the lead developer for the project." I guess the point he tries to make is that the new corporate overloads can essentially have a free and non-free version of the code, and more or less orphan the free version. The problem of course is that if the non-free version gets good, others will simply fork.

NZheretic asks: "HP has just announced that they have upgraded a four-processor server with Advanced Micro Devices' new dual-core Opteron. The amount of processing power a multi-processor multi-core system can deliver seem like a waste of processing power for most traditional servers, which are more likely to suffer from disk access bottlenecks before lack of processing power becomes a problem. But what if that power could be delivered direct to the desktop users? The HP ProLiant DL585 supports eight 64-bit PCI-X I/O Slots (Six 100MHz, two 133MHz). The ATI FireMV(TM) 2400 supports Quad DVI/VGA displays on PCI Express. Assuming that you leave one PCI-X slot for a multiport USB card, thats up to twenty eight displays with USB keyboards,mice and headsets that could theoretically replace twenty eight networked desktop PCs. Using DVI and USB extenders, not all of the user stations would have to be within the 7.5 meter cable distance imposed by the DVI cable limit. The only OS currently capable of supporting this many displays is Linux. What limits would be imposed by the hardware and PCI-X bottlenecks? Taking into account the added cost of the HP and ATI hardware, could it deliver a great reduction in the total cost of ownership over both traditional PCs and thin client systems? How many desktops is it practical for a high end server to directly replace?"

rudy_wayne writes "ZDNet is reporting that a new version of the Firefox Web browser is coming your way, but not from the Mozilla Foundation. 'When we launch our own services, in about a month or so, we'll be looking to offer the must-have companion to Firefox,' said Bart Decrem, Round Two CEO and a former staffer at the Mozilla Foundation. 'We see tremendous room for innovating on top of the Mozilla and Firefox platform, and we see ourselves as the first company outside of the nonprofit Mozilla Foundation that's fully dedicated to serving Firefox users.' Round Two planned a corporate launch Monday night with the promise of bringing 'a new crop of products and services that will enhance your Firefox experience.'"

AvatarofVirgo wrote in to mention an article running on ZDNet in which the consulting firm The Yankee Group goes after folks in the Linux community who have been questioning their objectivity. From the article: "Laura DiDio, an analyst at the Yankee Group who has been at the receiving end of much of the criticism from Linux advocates, claimed the radical elements of the community could damage the reputation of open source software."

jskelly writes "Sun Micro President Jonathan Schwartz attacked the GPL at the Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco yesterday.Other than the same old arguments (you can't make it proprietary later) he adds that it imposes on developing nations "a rather predatory obligation to disgorge all their IP back to the wealthiest nation in the world" -- but fails to mention that the converse is also true: the wealthiest nation in the world is similarly, under the GPL, forced to "disgorge all its IP back to the developing nations" as well. Duh!"

jambarama writes "MGM seems to have given a little in the Grokster case. After getting nailed on the possible implications of banning P2P software, they've now admitted it is perfectly legal to rip one's own CD and store it. Is this a return to the stripped down 'fair use' rights or a temporary court concession?"

An anonymous reader writes "It didn't seem to me like any single company had the stomach to keep after the scum that are ruining the Net for the rest of us. Unless that company is Microsoft. Since the beginning of 2003, Microsoft has filed 96 lawsuits against spammers, and 119 lawsuits against phishers. By any measure, 215 lawsuits constitutes a legal juggernaut. "

renderhead writes "According to ZDNet and many other sources, Microsoft has launched a new video download service for playing back television content on Windows Mobile devices. Partners include CinemaNow, MSNBC.com, and TiVo. According to another article from ployer.com, the service will require Windows XP, Internet Explorer 5 or higher, and Windows Media Player 10 or higher."

mkraft writes "ZDNet is reporting that TiVo has started a testing a new pop-up style ad on a random and limited number of subscriber's TiVo as of this weekend. The ads are designed to be displayed on screen when the user fast forwards through specially tagged commercials. Clicking the thumbsup or select button on the TiVo remote will take the user to a menu containing more information about the advertisement (text and/or video). Unfortunately according to reports on the TiVo Community forums the ads are also showing up during actual programs as well."

sriram_2001 writes "Dave Massy, a Microsoft employee who works on the Internet Explorer team has a response to the Mozilla Foundation's Mitchell Baker's comments. Specifically, he responds to the claim that IE is a part of the operating system. 'IE is part of the Windows Operating System so that parts of the OS and other applications can rely on the functionality and APIs being present. To be clear there are no Operating System APIs that IE uses that are not documented on MSDN as part of the platform SDK and available to other browsers and any other software that runs on Windows..'

akadruid writes "Mozilla has begun rolling the Firefox 1.02 security update. It has appeared with the little fanfare and without the staggered rollout of 1.01 - have Mozilla sorted their distribution worries?"

Ritalin16 writes "Many web developers may be disappointed to hear that Microsoft decided to hold off on full CSS2 support with IE 7.0. As said by Microsoft-Watch: 'One partner said that Microsoft considers CSS2 to be a flawed standard and that the company is waiting for a later point release, such as CSS2.1 or CSS3, before throwing its complete support behind it.'" More commentary available from ZDNet. Generally related to the IE 7 Acid Test thrown down by Opera.

downbad writes "ZDNet is reporting that the Google News home page is now customizable, allowing you to add or delete main news categories (such as business, sports and so on), as well as increasing or decreasing the number of headlines within a section. They've also introduced a feature that lets you create your own section using keywords for a topic that interests you."

Rollie Hawk writes "Remember how the Mac mini was designed by Apple to steal PC customers? Now Intel wants to steal them back. Adopting a shockingly similar lunch box shape and light-weight design, Intel's upcoming Mini PC features all the sleekness and portability (physical, that is) of the Mac mini with none of the Mac benefits. Well, at least it will probably have a faster processor. Now if only someone would make a Cobalt Qube knock-off for me."

Rollie Hawk writes "Remember how the Mac mini was designed by Apple to steal PC customers? Now Intel wants to steal them back. Adopting a shockingly similar lunch box shape and light-weight design, Intel's upcoming Mini PC features all the sleekness and portability (physical, that is) of the Mac mini with none of the Mac benefits. Well, at least it will probably have a faster processor. Now if only someone would make a Cobalt Qube knock-off for me."

Rollie Hawk writes "Remember how the Mac mini was designed by Apple to steal PC customers? Now Intel wants to steal them back. Adopting a shockingly similar lunch box shape and light-weight design, Intel's upcoming Mini PC features all the sleekness and portability (physical, that is) of the Mac mini with none of the Mac benefits. Well, at least it will probably have a faster processor. Now if only someone would make a Cobalt Qube knock-off for me."

Mark Stone writes with a thoughtful look back at the year 2004 in open source, pointing out both major gains and inevitable uncertainties. He writes "2004 stands out as a year in which open source consolidated its position as a valuable and accepted approach to business and technology policy. A less obvious but significant trend underlies all of this: even as open source business models join the mainstream, the open source development model remains a mysterious process on which large technology companies struggle to capitalize. Key issues and developments have played out in four areas: legal, policy, business, and technology." Read on for the rest. Legal

The biggest non-story of the year was SCO's legal efforts. So far SCO has not been able to make substantial headway with a single one of its legal claims, and indeed has suffered a number of significant setbacks in court.

This is certainly good news for Linux and open source. Going back five or six years, clearly one of the major obstacles to widespread adoption of open source software was the uncertain legal status of both the software and the licenses. While this aspect of open source is still an unfinished saga -- more on that shortly -- the inability of SCO, through either legal or PR channels, to undermine Linux gives reason for confidence about the future.

The real story about SCO in 2004 has in fact been the telling of that story. While mainstream media coverage of SCO has varied widely -- sometimes accurate, sometimes resembling coverage of the OJ Simpson trial -- Groklaw has emerged as a steady voice of reason and objectivity adeptly defusing all attempts at "FUD" PR around the case.

2004 has been, especially as an election year, a controversial year for the phenomenon of blogging. Whether blogging will provide a sustainable alternate voice in journalism is very much an open question. A few blog sites, however, have shown what a handful of dedicated individuals can do in the face of much larger, and better funded PR machines. Groklaw is an outstanding example of the positive journalism effect that blogging can have.

The legal front brought other good news for the open source community. Norway's Supreme Court acquitted Jon Johansen, and the Norwegian Economic Crime Unit opted not to appeal the decision. In the United States the Digital Millenium Copyright Act still remains the law of the land, but the Recording Industry Association of America has made little progress in forcing ISPs to disclose the identities of alleged file swappers.

A more troubling legal trend is the shift in debate about the intellectual property status of open source software. The principles behind the "copyleft" approach have gained continued acceptance, and have even been leveraged as an integral part of some business models. The debate now, however, centers more around patents that copyright.

IBM has been out in front of the patent issue. Their open source license was the first to explicitly address patent licensing as an issue above and beyond copyright, and they've taken steps, even recent steps, to see that open source development is unencumbered by patent concerns. IBM is not the only company putting patents in the open source domain. Sun Microsystems recently announced they will make patents available under their recently approved Common Development and Distribution open source license (CDDL).

All of this would seem to be good news for the open source community, especially given that Poland's objections have put a temporary halt to the Europan Union software patent initiative. Appearances can be deceiving, however. IBM is a supporter of software patents. Sun's gesture is in fact intended to create a competitive advantage for OpenSolaris over Linux, since the patent protection Sun offers applies only to work licensed under the CDDL -- in other words, not Linux. In a recent News.com commentary, Bruce Parens said, "So while claiming to make the patents available to open-source developers, Sun can sue folks who work on Linux rather than Solaris."

The biggest patent concern comes from Microsoft. In a speech in Australia, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer claimed that Linux violated more than 200 patents. While this may be more hype -- or hope -- than fact, it does tip Microsoft's hand in terms of what tactics they are willing to use to meet the Linux competitive threat.

Policy

All other things being equal, customers prefer an open system to a closed one, and vendor choice over vendor lock-in. In the IT world in general, and between Windows and Linux in particular, all other things are not equal, which makes platform choice complicated. More and more, however, organizations are seeing Linux as a viable platform choice that

• Lowers up-front licensing fees
• Has the support and backing of significant technology vendors, whether small, medium (Red Hat), or large (IBM, Novell)
• Avoids vendor lock-in at both the platform and application level

These claims are independent of the more controversial claims about improving security and lowering total cost of ownership. 2004 has added an interesting additional element to the mix: the desire of government organizations outside the United States to not be dependent on a large, American technology company whose revenues exceed the gross national product of most nations.

This software declaration of independence has taken several forms. Sometimes it seems simply to be a negotiating tactic to force Microsoft to lower prices. India may be an example.

Sometimes, however, price is not the issue. Munich, for example, committed to making the switch to Linux despite direct lobbying efforts by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer. In the case of a high tech country like Germany, this decision is probably influenced by the reluctance to be dependent on an American company guilty of monopoly practices.

The situation in the developing world is somewhat different. Unshackled by significant requirements of backward compatibility, emerging economies like Venezuela's have a chance to make a clean start and avoid what they perceive as the pitfalls and inefficiencies in older IT infrastructures.

The policy approach in China is even more alarming to traditional technology vendors. China clearly does not want to build an economy dependent on outside production or services, whether it's factories or satellite launches. In the software world China has made it clear that it can and will build its own platform and application stack leveraging open source components, if that is what it has to do to maintain control of its software destiny.

Business

The North American market for computer technology has, in many ways, reached the saturation point. A Pentium 4, to say nothing of a 64-bit processor, is already overkill for most office desktop applications. Older versions of the Microsoft Office suite, and older versions of Microsoft Windows, are often quite adequate for business productivity needs. The problem for traditional technology vendors is aggravated by the fact that Linux, Open Office, and other open source software may now be good enough.

On the one hand this accounts for why policy issues and the international technology market have become so important: this is where technology vendors see the biggest opportunity to grow new business. On the other hand, open source is forcing some significant changes in the software market domestically.

The most visible effect of open source has been the commoditization effect. Microsoft, as we've seen, has been forced to acknowledge the competitive impact Linux is having, and to cut prices overseas in response to this competition. Yet even companies like BEA acknowledge that open source will have an increasing commoditizing effect, meaning that they will cede lower levels of the application stack to freely available open source software and seek to add value further up the stack.

The most dramatic concession to commoditization in 2004 has been the announcement that Sun is open sourcing Solaris. Said one Sun executive who asked to remain anonymous, "Do you think we'd be open sourcing Solaris if we had any other way to compete with Linux on price? Of course not."

If anything, the opening of Solaris reinforces that Sun has been unable to find a business model built around Linux. Given that competitors like IBM and HP have, with varying degrees of success, been able to integrate Linux into their business models, one suspects that there are deeper problems at Sun than the opening of Solaris can solve.

The bottom line is that Sun is still trying to compete with, rather than embrace Linux. The CDDL doesn't extend patent protection to anyone working under a different open source License, and the CDDL is incompatible with the GPL, meaning none of the Solaris code can be used to benefit Linux.

This move, of using a license as a competitive tool, is one of the more subtle but more important business trends to emerge from open source in 2004.

The most common approach is a dual-licensing scheme, utilized by Trolltech (for Qt), Sleepycat (for Berkeley DB), MySQL, and newcomer db4objects, among others.

In each case the company makes its core product available under the GPL, or else under a similar viral-type license. Since each of these software products is intended to be embedded within or combined with other software to create a derivative product, companies are forced to make their own product available as open source, or to approach the originating company about separate licensing under proprietary terms.

The result is a very low-cost distribution mechanism for the open source companies, as well as a cheap in-bound sales channel of pre-qualified leads.

Of course, to be able to dual-license, you must have created all the code in question, or have full rights granted to you for all the code in question. Thus this very successful open source business model is incompatible with the open source development model; each of the companies using the dual-license approach does all, or nearly all of their software development in-house.

Technology

What then of the open source development model? Has it enjoyed the growth and widespread acceptance that open source business models have?

Certainly 2004 saw a number of significant releases for open source projects. GIMP 2.0 was finally released, as was Gnome 2.6. Large companies as well as individual projects made strides. IBM announced the release of its Java database, Cloudscape, as open source. Novell released SUSE Enterprise Server 9.

The year's most significant releases were the 2.6 series of Linux kernels, and the 1.0 release of Mono. With 2.6, Linux now has many of the features needed to compete as an enterprise-class server: better multiprocessor support, failover and hot-swap support, better journaling file system support.

Mono is absolutely critical if the open source community is to compete in the application development market. C# and .Net will be important application building blocks for the forseeable future, and Linux and open source need to be viable approaches.

The Debian Project has undergone an interesting evolution in the last year. Long-time Debian users have often complained about the slow pace at which Debian moves, favoring security and stability over feature growth. The result is a very solid server system, but one that, for the end user, often lacks support for advanced hardware.

The solution, which seems so obvious now, is independent distributions that leverage Debian as a base but target the end user with ease-of-use features and hardware-support features that have yet to make it into Debian. Two successful projects heading down this path are Ubuntu, which follows the Gnome approach to usability, and Mepis, which follows the KDE approach to usability. Either distribution will give you an easy install, access to Debian packages and apt-based network updates, but with more advanced hardware support and an improved UI over stock Debian.

By far the biggest development story of the year, however, has been Firefox, the browser component of the Mozilla project.

Timing is everything. Security, privacy, and spyware have become major concerns in 2004. Microsoft has refused to significantly update Internet Explorer (IE) until Longhorn is released, which could be in 2006 (as in "Santa Claus could be real"). The Mozilla Foundation capitalized on this opportunity with a major fundraising blitz for the foundation and PR blitz around Firefox; this included a full-page New York Times ad.

In November, Firefox 1.0 was released, and to date downloads exceed 10 million. Mozilla has raised over $250,000 in its fundraising campaign. While IE's market share still hovers around 90%, Firefox has rapidly grown to 5% market share, and put a dent in IE's market share for the first time in years. Industry analyst Gartner Group has looked at the results of 2004 and declared the browser war open again.

Looking ahead to 2005, it's interesting to ponder the tech sector's differing response to open source business and open source development models. The business models are reasonably well understood and generally accepted now. Not everyone is leveraging open source as a business play, but everyone understands it is one viable strategy to pursue.

On the development side, however, the results of open source continue to confound the establishment. Why did no one see the Firefox phenomenon coming? Equally important, why isn't anyone (AOL) attempting to leverage Firefox's market success and technology advantages?

With Solaris, it's interesting to note that even supporters of OpenSolaris admit it sees no real development savings to opening Solaris; the benefits are all on the marketing side. Ben Rockwood blogs "It's going to take Sun more work to maintain it open source than it will to just leave it closed."

Yes, open source has become mainstream. But that mainstream presence needs to be more than a commodity benefit to companies willing to leverage the results of open source. Will mainstream technology companies figure out how to anticipate and collaborate with open source development as a deep part of their technology strategy? That's a big question that 2005 may answer.

Mark Stone is an open source consultant and freelance writer living in the Sierra Nevada region of Northern California. He can be reached at mark.stone@gmail.com.

twitter writes "The BBC and ZDNet are reporting on an RSA poll of 1,000 users about failing confidence in ecommerce. 43% of respondents were reluctant to give details to online sites and 70% said that firms were not doing enough to keep their data secure. The BBC goes on to quote experts who back up the perception, ZDNet claims that action is being taken and is well."

BobPaul wrote in to mention an initiative by Visa to allow for swipeless credit card transactions. From the article: "...consumers need only wave credit and debit cards within a few inches of a reader to complete a purchase. And for purchases of less than $25, no signature is required...Each transmission between card and reader has a unique code that cannot be reused even if it is intercepted". Update: 02/25 16:06 GMT by Z : References to RFID technology removed.

IainMH writes "Over at the BBC, there is a report that despite the slow build up, IBM is spending $100m (£52m) over the next three years beefing up its commitment to Linux software. It continues: 'The cash injection will be used to help its customers use Linux on every type of device from handheld computers and phones right up to powerful servers.'" Commentary and coverage also available on TechNewsWorld and ZDNet.